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Michel Temer at a summit with state industry leaders (Copyright AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)
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Michel Temer’s
interim government has moved rapidly to reverse 13 years of social
programs advanced by the democratically elected Workers Party, despite
increased turmoil in his beleaguered administration.In
two weeks, the highly-orchestrated
rightwing impeachment of Dilma Rousseff,
viewed by many Brazilians as a coup, has
been beleaguered by a combination
of incompetence by the Temer government
and a series of leaked audio files
implicating key cabinet ministers
in their plotting of the “impeachment”
as a means to derail a far-reaching
corruption probe.
The façade of Michel Temer’s legitimacy
unraveled just days into his
administration, when Brazilian newspaper
Folha de Sao Paulo released an audio
recording and transcript of a
conversation between the country’s
Planning Minister, Romero Juca, and oil
executive Sergio Machado, discussing how
to put Temer into office to “stop the
bleeding” from the so-called Car Wash
Investigation into petroleum giant
Petrobras.
At
the time, Juca also served as the
president of the Brazilian Democratic
Movement, the same political party
of the chief participants in the
impeachment, Temer, Senate leader Renan
Calheiros, and disgraced former
lower-house leader Eduardo Cunha. Juca
stepped down from office immediately
following the release of the news story.
On
Monday, it was Fabiano Silveira who
became the second official to resign his
post in the Temer Administration,
after a second leaked recording exposed
Brazil’s Transparency Minister, who is
tasked with combating corruption,
offering advice to Calheiros on how
to undermine the Car Wash corruption
probe, in which he, along with most
of the country's high-ranking government
officials, is implicated.
In
the two weeks that Temer’s transition
government has held power, it has moved
to unravel the country’s social welfare
state, eliminating the minister
of culture, and has moved to replace
regional commitments and the BRICS
alliance with renewed deregulated system
of trade with the United States. Temer,
to many Brazilians is systematically
reversing 13 years of policies advanced
by the Workers Party.
With the once vibrant South American
economic powerhouse reeling under a
neoliberal agenda, Loud & Clear’s Brian
Becker sat down on Wednesday with Aline
C. Piva and Juliana Moraes, of the group
Brazilian Expats for Democracy,
to discuss what might happen next.
"Brazilians have taken to the streets,"
said Piva. "When Michel Temer first
assumed control of the government he
started a rollback of the social
policies that have been in effect for a
decade and a half in Brazil. He cut back
social programs and he extinguished the
minister of culture. In less than one
week he rolled back 13 years of social
achievement."
The current administration is evidently
corrupt, but what about Dilma Rousseff?
"There are no investigations under Dilma
Rousseff’s name for corruption, and
there is nothing that would show that
she is a corrupt politician," explained
Moraes. "What we are seeing is that the
people who are looking to oust her
actually have dirty records. The current
interim president is supposed to be
somebody who is unelectable. He has
dirty records, which mean corruption
charges against him, so for the next
eight years he is not supposed to even
be in office."
She also explained that the recent
release of audio files exposing Romero
Juca’s coup plot and Fabiano Silveira’s
plans to undermine the corruption probe
have led to cries for Temer to go,
with many protesters labeling him "Golpista"
for "coup leader."
Was this coup orchestrated to force
US-backed neoliberal economics
on Brazil?
"Absolutely," said Piva. "The first day
of Temer’s administration made clear
that the neoliberal agenda is back
in place in Brazilian politics."
The activist explained that Temer’s
administration has moved to revoke or
offset existing commitments in Latin
America, the developing world, and
with Russia and China in favor of a push
toward US-centric bilateral trade
deregulation.
"Jose Serra, the new minister of foreign
affairs, in his first speech, made very
clear that Brazil is going to roll back
the policies that led to more
independence in the region," said Piva.
Moraes took a stronger line, comparing
the present situation to the US-backed
1964 Brazilian military coup, noting
similar involvement in the proceedings
by the US ambassador. "Now we have
Liliana Ayalde, the current ambassador
to Brazil and the former ambassador
to Paraguay in 2008 to 2011, when there
was a coup there, who is writing op-ed
in the right-wing newspaper O Globo
about how Brazil is an essential market
for American corporations, a must-play
for US business."
She said that America aims to undermine
the multilateral associations
established by Brazil’s Workers Party
with South American countries, and also
looks to fracture the BRICS economic
alliance for challenging the domination
of the World Bank and the IMF. "Yes,
there is some involvement by the US,"
stated Ayalde.
Source: Sputnik
Go to audio interview by Brian Becker, LOUD & CLEAR
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